There is Only this Day
by WElle
Summary: ONESHOT. Written for the 2008 SummerGen challenge at . After the events of Route 666, Dean and Sam stop for the night and can't seem to get themselves going again.


It's something like the mortal smell of smoke. She smells or feels or whatever the word is, she doesn't know, but she knows they are coming. It's the damage that she can sense from miles away, leaking out toward her like blood into a bruise. They are aimless, listless: two more souls, poor souls, aching souls, joining the rest she has already collected.

X

"There's a motel." Dean's voice is sandy from disuse. He sits up and stretches a kink out of his neck, scrubs his hands across his face, under his shades.

Sam startles at the sound. He knows full well Dean hasn't slept behind those sunglasses, has only pretended to. For 250 miles. To get out of talking about Cassie. But it's been quiet for hours and so he startles just the same.

"I thought you wanted to go 'til at least dark," Sam says. It's Dean's default position to get as much ground between himself and messy emotional mess as is possible as soon as possible.

Dean only shrugs in response.

"I'm not tired, I can drive for a while," Sam offers.

Dean motions with his chin. "They have a diner. I'm hungry."

Sam isn't going to argue anything his brother wants tonight.

Xx

The room is cheap, clean, nice even. There's cable. Dean's found his favourite Bruce Lee movie and Sam tells him to sit tight and watch. He'll pick up the food.

"Cheeseburger, extra onions." The command is uttered without looking up at Sam. Dean settles on his bed and pulls off his socks.

"And pie," they say in unison.

Xx

The waitress chats with him at the counter while he waits. The place is empty, clean, too bright.

"You boys not up for a night out?" she asks.

Sam must just be staring at her because she seems to smile in response to a question he didn't think he'd asked out loud.

"Saw you guys check in." She points through the window at the motel office. "Not much else to look at around here."

Xxx

Dean is right where he left him. He hands him the food and opens two cold beers, waits for a commercial.

"Where are we going?"

"Dunno." Dean shrugs, eyes glued to the TV, mouth full of fries.

Sam takes a bite of his chicken sandwich. Not bad. The beer he drinks in sips sends fatigue through his legs and shoulders. He stretches out on the bed wanting nothing more than just not to move until he feels like it. Which he thinks won't be anytime soon.

"We could stay here for a couple of days. Town seems kind of nice," Sam suggests idly, figuring they'll be a hundred miles away by noon. "There's a lake, I think."

"Sure."

"Really?" Sam's incredulous.

"Yeah, Bobby's on the thing in Pennsylvania. May as well." Dean shrugs again, takes another bite of burger then downs half his beer without turning away from the TV once.

"OK." Sam smiles, slinks down the bed and dozes.

Xxx

The next day they do laundry. Dean cleans weapons. They eat. They watch television. They sleep. A lot.

Sam wakes around 7, starving. He stretches outside in front of the car and surveys the parking lot. The sun is setting and the town looks practically abandoned. Besides the Impala, there are only the same three cars that were there when they arrived yesterday and no one drives by on what must be the main road.

He looks behind him through the open door of the motel room. Dean is perched in the same position on his bed he's been in most of the day, cross-legged propped against the headboard. This time he's flipping idly through a car magazine.

"I'm going for dinner," he tells his brother.

"Bring me something." Dean sounds relaxed, Sam thinks.

"You wanna go out and get a beer?" Sam offers, hoping Dean says no.

Dean looks up, looking for a second like he might say yes. Then he stretches his legs and closes his eyes again with a long tired sigh. "Naw. There's a Godzilla marathon on tonight."

He's watched his brother's heart broken a few times this year and he thinks maybe Dean needs to catch his breath. No women, no hunt to plan for, just some bad TV and beer. Doesn't sound bad at all to Sam.

XXX

She watches them putter around their car, leave and come back. They don't go far, they don't move quickly. Good, she thinks. She lets it run through her, out of her hands. Quiet waves. Let them rest.

XX

Three days pass the same way. Sleeping, eating, cable TV. Sam is amazed he's not getting restless. Sam's more amazed that Dean seems content to sit around.

"You're never this..." Sam searches for the word.

"Amazing, awesome, handsome," Dean jokes while he flips channels.

"Still."

Dean shrugs. "Nothing going on, how often do we get to just be still?"

"True." Sam doesn't even bother getting up to get food, just orders it in.

XXX

Three days after that, Dean's cell blinks with a text. Coordinates. Sam picks it up while Dean's in the shower. He's about to pull out his laptop when the shower stops and Dean practically bounds with glee toward his bed.

"Buck Rogers marathon!" He flips on the TV. Sam can't help but smile. He shuts off the phone and drops it in Dean's duffel.

XXX

They watch the ambulance in the motel parking lot from the diner window.

The waitress brings their breakfast and tuts at the sight.

"Third one," she says vaguely.

"Third what?" Dean asks.

"Heart attack," she says. "Third guy in a year that died of a heart attack."

"What?" Sam asks. "At the motel?"

"Yeah. Freak thing."

He and Dean share a glance and then finish their pancakes.

XXX

She'll make it better. They will all be happy. The pain will be gone. The exhaustion will be gone. They will rest.

XXX

"Ever get the feeling this job follows us around?" Dean asks.

They have a vague plan to look into death records for this town, but they get side tracked just wandering around. They pass a bar and Sam gets a sudden urge to just sit and have one, or three.

They pick a booth at the back and Sam's eyes adjust to the low light. The place is dotted with men and women and it doesn't really occur to either brother that it's not quite noon.

"How're you doing?" Sam asks.

"Fine." Dean takes a swig.

"Really?" he asks, even though he knows that in a strange way, Dean is.

"Yeah," Dean snorts. "TV rot your brain this week? You're the emo one."

"It's been more than a week," Sam mutters. "It's just, you haven't said anything about Cassie."

"And that's strange because…" Dean takes another long drink. Sam thinks, it's not, it's not strange at all that he's not talking. It's just that Dean usually avoids talking by talking non-stop. And this time, there's just … nothing. Just a sort of contended silence. A very un-Dean-like stillness and silence.

Something in Sam's pocket starts to vibrate.

"I thought I left this in the motel." He pulls the cell phone from his pocket. Coordinates again.

"Who is it?" Dean asks.

"Dad," Sam says casually, slipping the phone back into his jacket.

"What does he want?"

"Job for us, I think." Sam drinks his beer.

"Tomorrow." Dean finishes his drink. "Let's go check this town out."

Sam is about to say something, but it slips his mind. They leave the bar and squint into the blue afternoon sky.

They last about an hour, not wandering far, not venturing past the main drag and eventually make their way back to the motel.

XXX

"Sammy, these cars haven't moved. In like days." Dean peers through the window, the next morning.

"Neither has ours." Sam gets out of bed and stretches.

"Yeah, I know," Dean says. "Let's go for drive."

"Why? It's warm in here." Sam starts to make coffee in tiny room coffee pot.

"C'mon, Sammy. Let's get some decent coffee." Dean dresses quickly, urges Sam out of the room a few minutes later.

"Let's just go to the diner," Sam whines.

"We go there every day. Let's see what else there is."

They walk toward the car a brisk April wind picks up, blowing rain off the roof.

"Dean, it's cold. The coffee's good there. We'll go for a drive this afternoon."

XXX

These are the two she sensed from so far away, so strong was the weight of their collected grief. The ones that needed her the most. The brief respite she's given them is so little compared to what they need. They need her, they need peace, they need to be taken into her arms and pressed to her.

XXX

"Dean." Sam shakes Dean's shoulder. The morning sky hasn't even begun to lighten. "Dean, wake up."

Dean grumbles half asleep and rolls away from Sam.

"Dean!"

"When I open my eyes you'd better be Angelina Jolie," he grouses and rolls back toward Sam.

Sam sits on his bed and waits for him to sit up.

"OK, OK, what?" Dean pushes himself up to his elbows, "What?"

"Dean I just had a nightmare." Sam stares at him, fighting a fog that is quickly wrapping itself around him.

"And? You need a hug?" Dean is already lowering himself back under the covers.

"About Jess. Dean." He grabs his brother's shoulders and shakes him again. He needs to pinch himself or something, something isn't right, what was his point?

"OK." He sits up and sighs like he's doing Sam a big favour, "OK. Fire again?"

"Yeah, but that's not the point." Sam is trying to remember. "It's...it's not right. There's something wrong."

"Sammy, it's OK. It'll get easier." Dean pats Sam's arm.

"No, Dean. That's it. I am fine." Sam is trying to make Dean understand. "The last…I don't know...since we got here. We're both fine."

XXX

She flinches. The pain is threatening to rise again. She can't stand the pain. Theirs or hers. There is so much of it. She blankets it with peace and quiet. She pours it out of her and focuses on the young one's heart.

XXXX

Sam walks around for the next three days trying to remember…something. Like an itch he can't quite reach, like it keeps moving under his skin and all the scratching in the world isn't quite relieving it.

"Dean?" They are out walking one afternoon, the same stretch of road from the motel to the little city square to the bar to the diner and back to the motel. All day, they wander back and forth, kicking stones, not talking much, but just enjoying the sun.

"What?"

"We never did check out about that ambulance." Sam grasps at something.

"Nope."

"What did she say? Three heart attacks? Same motel."

"Maybe it's the food." Dean laughs. "That motel makes great pancakes."

"Or the lying around," Sam laughs. "I didn't know there were that many 80's TV marathons."

"I, Sammy, let's go back." Dean looks off kilter somehow. Sam can't put his finger on it.

Sam stares at him, feels disquiet radiate off him and he can't describe it, but it feels clear, compelling, there isn't a word for it, but there is an intensity. Sam has felt a calm sort of numbness since they got here. "No, let's keep going."

"Where? We're walking in a circle. Let's just go back." Dean is already backing away.

"No, Dean. Come on," Sam urges. "I think, I think we need to keep going."

Dean stops dead in his tracks.

"Sammy?" Dean starts backing up. "I need to go back. Now!"

XXXX

Dean passes out the second he hits the bed and Sam paces and circles and doesn't know what to do with himself. Something is so wrong here. They've wasted days like this, lying around, eating, watching television. He thinks of the ambulance pulling out, how many days ago was that even? He thinks of it and wonders whether all these cars that haven't moved, just like theirs, belong to people who haven't moved, just like them.

Something isn't right. It repeats in his head like a mantra. Dean is too content and nightmares don't bother Sam and they haven't gone anywhere or done anything or God, Sam thinks, they haven't checked out the deaths or followed Dad's text to the next set of coordinates.

In the first flash of clarity he's had in days, Sam grabs his bag and his brother's keys and practically runs. He doesn't think about where he's going, only that he needs to drive away from here.

He pulls over a mile outside of the town's limits and opens the laptop. It takes a couple of hours but he finds what he's looking for, cursing the entire time. He and Dean have been drifting, listless and calm, almost happy, but, true to their fucked up little lives, that is all wrong. Calm and happy isn't Winchester. It's been all wrong, but they've been too busy lazing around, barely talking, not hunting, not doing anything, to notice something wasn't right.

Sam's been gone a few hours and he's still not sure what to do, but he's left Dean alone too long. They'll figure out what to do together.

XXX

Poor little thing. Still struggling, still suffering. The other one is almost there, almost ready to come to her. This one though, this one will take more work. Perhaps once he's alone.

XXX

Sam digs his nails into his palms, pinches the skin on his arm, bites his cheek as he runs from the car door back to the motel room. He does everything he can think of to keep a clear sensation in his head, to keep the haze away. He fumbles with the keys, but bursts through the door in time to see her.

Leaning over Dean, the weightless, transparent figure, brushes at his forehead, straightens his sheets, coos over him, singing softly. Sam feels it flood him again, but rejects it, won't allow himself to be soothed or quieted into indolence. He won't risk a shot of rock salt this close to Dean. Not again. The horrible thought seems to bring him back to himself. He thinks of it again, brings the scene to his head as clearly as he can, forces himself to see Dean lying on the ground, rage pounding through him, gun trained on his brother's head. He feels himself coming to normal. He thinks of something else, some fight with his father from years ago.

She sees him now. She moves toward him with ease and kindness in her eyes and he calls up every horrible memory he can, just to keep his focus. He goes for the iron crowbar, bottom of the duffel. The more he calls to mind the faster she's there, but he's finally thinking clearly and so he keeps going.

She's on top of him now, reaches her hand to his face and he falls, chest heaving and makes himself keep fumbling through the bag, this time kneeling in his mind at Jessica's grave. His hand closes on the bar and he swings at her, scattering her for now.

He hauls in a greedy breath and shakes his head, scrambles to Dean's side.

"Dean, get up!" He shakes him, drags him to his feet. "Dean, let's go." Dean barely wakes, his breath sounds wrong and he staggers to the car even with Sam's help. He throws his brother onto the passenger seat and speeds towards the edge of town.

"Dean, c'mon man, wake up."

"M'fine, Sammy, ssss fine," Dean mumbles, slumps against the door. He perks up across the town line and the tightness, the fatigue, the dawning of confusion and guilt for something Sam knows Dean can't name but must hold himself responsible for.

"What the hell?" Dean asks.

Sam rushes through the explanation, "Margaret Reynolds. She was a nurse at the psychiatric hospital that used to be on the property where the motel is now. Thirty-five years ago she was caught murdering a patient. Turns out he was her twenty-eighth. She OD'd everyone she thought was suffering – chronically depressed mostly. She had flexible ideas about what suffering was."

"What happened to her?"

"She killed herself. Said she couldn't stand to be in the world with so much pain and needless agony," Sam says.

"You think she's the one doing this?" Dean asks.

"Yeah. It was her. She was hovering over you when I got back to the room. I don't know how much time you would have had left."

"What? Us? Me?"

"Both of us, probably." Sam turns to him. "Jesus, Dean, ever since we got here, we've barely moved. We've been relaxed – practically catatonic most days. Neither one of us is depressed or stressed or… anything."

"And the heart attacks?"

"Her patients all OD'd on digitalis," Sam says gravely. "I think she's recreating the murders, continuing the work. Sedating her victims somehow, numbing them until it's their turn."

Dean scrubs his face, cobwebs blowing away, lucidity returning. "Tell me she wasn't cremated."

"Nope. Buried in the city plot."

"Unmarked?" Dean huffs out a breath.

"Not quite. C154."

Dean looks up in gratitude.

Xxxx

No, no, no, poor darling souls. They need to stop moving, stop hurting, stop searching. They are coming to her tonight, she can feel it. She'll embrace them and they'll see, they'll see how much better rest is.

Xxxxx

They wait for dark and pull the car around, wait at the town's edge a bit reluctant.

"What happens if we start to get, you know, under her spell again, whatever?" Dean asks.

"Think of something bad, something that made you feel like crap, it seems to keep your mind clear, but it also seems to bring her right to you."

"I suppose being doubly screwed is more like it." Dean snorts.

"Yeah," Sam laughs. "The Winchester Way."

"Ha." Dean laughs and pulls up at the cemetery gates.

"You feel OK?" Sam stands outside the car, surveying, "I mean…not ok."

"My usual fabulous self." Sarcastic Dean is a good sign.

They throw the bags and then themselves over the fence and start towards the corner of the cemetery reserved for city burials. It starts the second they step off unconsecrated ground. First the feeling of serenity, then the heaviness in their limbs, the listlessness.

"Dean…" Sam fights it, starts to think of every crappy thing he can. "Dean, when you told Cassie, what happened?"

"Jesus, Sammy…this?" Dean looks pained. But alert.

"This is her." Sam drops the bag beside the tiny grave marker. "C'mon, Dean. You dig, you talk, I'll wait for her."

"How about you dig through your feelings and I hold the gun." Dean huffs. "That's kinda been our thing for, I dunno, since you could talk."

Sam's already holding the gun and throws Dean the shovel. "Here she comes." He motions with his chin, shotgun raised. The first shot dissipates her, but they both know it's only for the time being.

Dean starts digging, silently at first. Sam stands beside him, watches him, sees the Adam's Apple, the giant literal lump in Dean's throat bob up and down rhythmically, deliberately.

"I met her at a coffee shop, on the college campus. I was doing the research, since Geekboy was otherwise engaged." Sam doesn't ignore the sting, he absorbs it and Dean continues, "She was, well you met her, she was hot."

Sam listens to every word, every slight shift in Dean's tone, every hitch in his breath. Sam listens to Dean talk about how Cassie didn't fall for any of his usual lines, how she made him work for one date. How he couldn't believe his luck when she put out on the second date, how Dean couldn't believe himself when he spent the night and stayed for breakfast, lunch, the weekend. Margaret stays away for the next hour and half until Dean hits the lid of the coffin.

"Thank god for cheap shit city burials." Dean swings at the pine box with the head of the shovel. "Why didn't they just cremate the bitch?"

No sooner are the words out of his mouth than she makes another pass at Sam. Another shot, two, but she only barely disappears. He looks down to see Dean smiling, leaning against the grave walls, sinking to his heels.

"Sammy, I don't want to do this anymore." Dean crouches, light voiced, drifting.

"I know, dude. Just a few more minutes," Sam urges, feeling himself slipping. "What happened when you told her?"

"Who?"

"Cassie, Dean, Cassie. What happened when you told her?"

"She looked, she looked at me like I was nuts." He starts to stand, shaking his head. "She went into the other room, and I.."

"Don't, little one. Don't. You don't need to do this." Her voice is soft. Her face is gentle. She heads for Dean.

"Dean, come on, Dean!" Sam shouts and empties the gun at her again, she stays where she is, energy focused on Dean, whispering, gently goading him toward her.

"Dean! Stay with me, Dean!" Sam shouts, desperate, jumps in the grave with his brother and wrenches the shovel from his hands. He smashes at the coffin, shatters the rotting wood, tossing the sticks aside. "C'mon Dean."

Dean is lost to her now. He's smiling stupidly, tears leaking from his eyes. She's stroking his head and whispering assurances to him. Sam works as fast as he can, but he feels himself slipping as he tries to get out and get to the salt and lighter fluid. He tries, he thinks of Jess, thinks about that last fight with his father, smashes his own hand against the side of the grave and manages to just reach the gear as the sound of Dean's laboured breathing hits him.

And that does the trick. Sam empties the salt and fluid all over the grave site and hauls himself up over the edge, scrambling for the collar of Dean's shirt.

"Dean, get up!" he yells and pulls at his brother, but she wraps her arms around Dean and doesn't let go. She whispers in the older brother's year and he's slack against her. Sam isn't strong enough. Fear has cleared his mind but her grip is preternaturally strong and he can't budge them.

He begs her, "Please, please let him go. He's all I have, please!"

She turns to him, looking to all the world a concerned mother, a gentle sympathetic soul. "Don't worry, darling. You'll be with him soon. You can rest together."

The distraction is enough and he manages to wrench Dean far enough away from the open lid of the coffin. Sam flicks the Zippo and sends it flying toward Margaret's earthly self.

"No!" She screams and writhes and her grip on Dean is broken. Sam hauls him out of the grave and rolls them both from the fire.

Xxx

It's two days later when Dean's recovered enough to sit up in bed and take a cup of coffee. They're in another motel, half a state away, this one is less nice, less clean with no cable. Perfect as far as Sam is concerned.

"Hey." Sam sits beside him, passing him the coffee cup. "How're you feeling?"

"Uh, crappy? Yeah crappy's the word." Dean tries to stifle a groan as he reaches for the coffee.

"Good." Sam laughs then blanches a bit. "I mean, you know, considering."

"Yeah." Dean's rib is broken, he's got minor burns up his right side and his chest hurts like a bitch, or so he's told Sam endlessly the times he's been awake for more than five minutes straight. Dean clears his throat and his voice drops low, Sam would say almost sorrowfully if Dean allowed himself that sort of thing.

"She went into the other room, got my stuff and handed it to me. Told me to leave and never come back. Just like that." Dean's looking at his lap when he speaks, his voice is studiously even by the end of his confession.

Sam says the only thing he can think of, "That's pretty cold."

"I dunno, I guess it sounded nuts." Dean smiles ruefully, head still bowed. "Anyway, it's not like we were together long, it's just, I thought, there was something…you know?"

"Maybe there is, I mean now that she knows, we could always…you could," Sam offers.

"No, Sam. There's no future for me there." Dean tries to joke, "If there is at all."

Sam almost protests, but there's no point. He'd heard Cassie when she'd said goodbye this time. "You should get some more rest."

"You know, I think I've had about enough rest." Dean's face is back to normal. "How about we blow this popstand first thing in the morning."

"Sounds good to me." Sam smiles. "You hungry? I'll go grab us some food."

"Yeah, cheeseburger, extra onions." Dean makes himself more comfortable and takes the remote control Sam offers.

"And pie," they both say.


End file.
